Decisions by the ESPON Monitoring Committee on a compilation of Regional Typologies

06 April 2011 - The service provider presented the Final Report on Typology Compilation for the Monitoring Committee meeting in February 2010. Based on the Quick Scan approach, various examples on how the results can be used to cross-analyse other ESPON results and indicators were discussed as well as the typologies behind.

The Monitoring Committee decided that the Coordination Unit should test the Typology Compilation and that the results of this test should be discussed before further dissemination.

Based on the testing and the development of new regional typologies by the European Commission services, and in order to support consensus and consistency at European level, the MC decided the 9 regional typologies that ongoing and future ESPON applied research projects and ESPON publications would make use of for analytical purposes, if relevant.

The 9 regional typologies cover the following types:

(1) urban-rural;

(2) metropolitan regions;

(3) border regions;

(4) islands regions;

(5) sparsely populated regions; (6) outermost regions;

(7) mountainous regions;

(8) coastal regions;

(9) regions in industrial transition.

The 9 regional typologies are to be considered as a complementary tool in addition to the analysis that is normally carried out in the framework of the ESPON applied research projects. The typologies are to be considered in the European context and might not fully reflect national and regional specificities if used only at these levels.

The typologies are considered for analytical use only. Maps of the typologies are not relevant as part of ESPON projects, reports or publications. The typologies are conceived as providing a quick-scan tool for ESPON applied research projects under Priority 1 to interpret their results in relation to these specific types of territories and to compare their situation and performance in the European framework.

Access to the typologies compiled for use within ESPON is available via the ESPON Database, where guidance on their proper use is available.

Currently, the ESPON Coordination Unit is in the process of preparing a note given guidance to ESPON Lead Partners on how to use the 9 regional typologies, including the recommendations made the MC and mentioned above.

Considering this situation, the final report from the Typology Compilation project is not uploaded on the ESPON Website.